-After Joe Biden’s strong performance
at the State of the Union address last week,
Republicans are now insisting that Biden must be on drugs,
despite the fact that Donald Trump
is the one whose White House
had a very real drug scandal that keeps getting worse.
For more on this, it’s time for A Closer Look.
♪♪
Fox News and the Republican Party
could have spent the last four years
crafting an agenda of their own
and presenting to the American people an alternative vision
to what they would do if they were returned to power.
Instead, they spent most of that time
telling everybody that Joe Biden has dementia.
-Do you see in Joe Biden a cognitive decline?
And if so, is that a danger to the country?
-I do, I think most of us do.
-We have a president that clearly
is not cognitively up to this job.
-There’s a mental decline.
-This man’s got cognitive issues related to his age.
-He’s in serious mental decline. I mean, it’s so obvious now.
-I don’t think there’s any doubt Biden’s senile.
-It’s a risk to run a candidate who may be senile.
We have no clue what Joe Biden actually thinks,
or even if he’s capable of thinking.
-You know who lights up for ice cream?
Children and the elderly.
There’s a reason caregivers deliver ice cream
to their patients in nursing homes.
-Look, the man has dementia. There’s no doubt about it.
[ Laughs ] I mean, I’ve talked to doctors.
He actually displays symptoms that two gerontologists
told me are classic symptoms of middle level dementia.
It’s not just my opinion.
It’s the opinion of a number of doctors
I’ve actually interviewed.
-So you talk to a bunch of doctors,
who told you all the symptoms of dementia.
Are you sure they weren’t your doctors?
I would say the first sign of dementia
is going in for a doctor’s appointment
and thinking you’re the one interviewing the doctor.
"Thanks for letting me interview you for my new talk show,
'Can You See My Ass in This Gown?'"
Here are a few other signs of mid-level dementia.
You think there’s a massive secret conspiracy
involving voting machines and a dead Venezuelan dictator
to rig a presidential election,
you show up to a landscaping company
thinking it’s a luxury hotel,
your skull starts leaking on national TV,
and you routinely make this face.
That’s the face you make when a doctor shows you
an X-ray of your own brain, and there’s nothing there.
Also, I do have to touch on this real quick.
-Do you know who lights up for ice cream?
Children and the elderly.
-You know who else lights up for ice cream?
Everyone.
I am neither -- [ Cheers and applause ]
I, for example,
am neither a child nor an elderly person,
but I also enjoy ice cream,
as documented on national television.
It’s impossible to eat ice cream
and not look like you’re enjoying it.
And believe me, once the president
started talking about the Middle East,
I tried. I had nowhere to put it.
It’s literally designed that you can’t put it down,
which did inspire a great business idea.
Do you love ice cream?
Do you wish you had somewhere to put it
when TV cameras are trained on your every move
because you happen to be standing next to the president
when he makes international news?
Introducing the Cone Holster.
It’s an on-the-go ice cream cone holster
you can wear on your belt now. You’ll never have to look silly
while standing next to a world leader
during an impromptu press conference
in an ice cream store.
Call now to order...
Where was I? Ah, yes. Dementia.
The point is, Republicans spent years relentlessly
constructing an absurd image of Biden
as a cognitively-impaired dementia patient,
and in one night, that already ridiculous narrative crumbled
after Biden’s strong performance
at the State of the Union address.
Instant polls showed the speech
was a success, and it was so strong,
Biden was cracking jokes about it afterward
when he was caught talking on a hot mic to a member of Congress.
-Yeah. [ Laughs ] -You were on fire tonight.
Seriously. [ Laughter ]
-You can tell Biden felt good about his speech
from the way he was yukking it up
like he just hit an inside the park home run
in a company softball game.
"Hey, folks, when I rounded third base,
I wasn’t sure I was going to make it.
I’m not kidding around.
You should have seen the faces on those jerks from Pep Boys.
They couldn’t believe they lost to Joe Biden Auto Parts.
No joke."
Of course, it wasn’t entirely flawless night.
Biden did not seem to realize he was on a hot mic
when he started talking about his relationship
with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu,
until an aide interrupted him.
-Sir, just -- just so you know. -[ Laughs ]
-You know Biden’s in a good mood when he’s like,
"The entire world heard that? Well, [bleep] it."
"Any mic is a hot mic when I’m spitting, son!"
But more importantly, you’re going to have
a come-to-Jesus meeting with Netanyahu now?
Why didn’t you have that meeting five months ago?
Was Jesus not answering your calls?
You should have left a message saying,
"Call me back right away. It’s about your hometown."
What are you waiting for, the next impromptu press conference
inside a combination of Taco Bell/Pizza Hut?
As we said on this show before, the only way
out of this horrific situation is an immediate,
lasting ceasefire and the safe return of all hostages.
And in a follow up interview,
Biden said that’s what he wants, too.
-You were caught on a hot mic
after your State of the Union address,
talking to Secretary of State Antony Blinken
and Senator Michael Bennet,
saying, quote, "I told him, Bibi -- and don’t repeat this --
but you and I are going to have a come-to-Jesus meeting."
What do you mean by that?
-What I meant was, it’s an expression used
in the southern part of my state,
meaning a serious meeting.
He’s hurting Israel more than helping Israel
by making the rest of the world --
It’s contrary to what Israel stands for.
And I think it’s a big mistake. So I want to see a cease fire.
-If you want to see a cease fire,
then you have to actually do something to achieve it.
You have to push for it.
You have to use your leverage as president to get it.
You can’t just wish for it out loud
like you’re throwing pennies into a mall fountain,
then heading off to the DQ and the food court.
Nonetheless, Democrats and the Biden team
were clearly pleased
by the president’s performance during the speech.
Instant polls show voters were pleased, too.
But the way you know for sure that the speech went well
is how much Republicans have been in hysterics over it.
Sean Hannity was obsessed with one phrase in particular
when describing Biden’s performance tonight.
-America saw, um, let’s say, a very different Joe Biden.
I might call him Jacked-up Joe.
Jacked-up Joe screaming lie after lie.
Jacked-up Joe, uh, perhaps overcompensated.
Now, the difference between Jacked-up Joe tonight
and his recent public appearances.
Very angry, very jacked up, you might say.
This angry, jacked up Joe Biden.
What was your reaction to jacked up, angry,
bitterly partisan Joe Biden tonight?
Jacked-up Joe Biden’s
State of the Union address is in the books.
Let’s get your overall reaction to Jacked-up Joe.
-When the Biden team heard Hannity
say the words "Jacked-up Joe" that many times,
I bet they said, "Thank you for the kick-ass new nickname."
Biden might be behind Trump in a recent poll by four points,
but when you change his name to Jacked-ip Joe, he’s up 45.
Jack -- Jacked up. The way he says "jacked" is --
I’m not okay with.
Jacked-up Joe. That’s how you say it.
Jacked-up, Joe.
Republicans keep coming up with better messaging
for Biden than Biden does.
He co-opted the Dark Brandon memes
and made them a staple of his campaign.
Meanwhile, Democrats came up with the slogan --
and this is real...
Here’s how you know a campaign slogan sucks --
when it’s two sentences. That’s like if Obama’s was...
By contrast, Jacked-up Joe is awesome.
That makes him sound like a professional wrestler.
Biden should start entering speeches
with a hottie on each arm.
"I’m not kidding around here, brother.
You’re going to regret the day you met
Jacked-up Joe. Oh, yeah, oh, yeah, folks."
And he wasn’t the only Fox host who concluded
that Biden must have been on drugs.
-I’m a not a doctor,
but they’re giving him something.
All of a sudden, this guy is, like, amped.
On speed or something.
-Nobody has ever needed to say
"I’m not a doctor" less than Jesse Watters.
And if he was a doctor, you know he’d be
one of those first name doctors,
like a chiropractor or a wedding DJ.
"Doctor Jesse is here to cure your dance fever
and adjust your L5."
Also, let me ask you who you think is more likely
to be on mind-altering drugs,
a president who gives a perfectly normal
State of the Union address, or a member of Congress
who shows up to an official work event dressed like this.
That’s Marjorie Taylor Greene at the State of the Union,
looking like she got fired from a Russian airline
for wearing too much flair.
Although there’s nothing I can say about her
dumb Halloween getup that can’t be summed up
by Joe Biden’s reaction when he saw her.
Watch Biden’s face in this clip, when he walks into the chamber
and sees Greene’s stupid costume.
-Mr. president, you --
-Look over here, Mr. President.
-That’s how insane she looks.
She got Joe Biden to make the Rudy face.
What’s especially galling about insisting that Biden is on drugs
is that in reality, it’s the Trump White House
that had a very real documented drug scandal.
And that’s not just a salacious rumor.
That’s according to a government report.
-A new report from the inspector general
at the Defense Department
says the Trump White House was, quote,
"awash with speed and prescription drugs."
The report says drugs, including the sleep medication
Ambien and the anti-sleep med Provigil,
were given out without identifying
who was receiving them.
In a new Rolling Stone article on the DoD report,
a former staffer told the publication
the anti-anxiety drug Xanax was also handed out,
although it was not mentioned in the IG’s report.
-That’s right, the Trump White House was allegedly awash
in everything from speed to Ambien to Provigil to Xanax.
Now, we can’t legally say that Trump is on drugs,
but he does look like every side effect
from a drug commercial -- sweats like crazy,
gets cottonmouth, has trouble seeing the teleprompter
and glitches like his brain is an exploding
Rube Goldberg machine.
-We are a nation that just recently heard
that Saudi Arabia and Russia will [stammers, sighs].
We have become a nation like nobody thought possible.
By far the most disgraceful part of Joe Biden’s disservice
since the divisive and angry speech --
it was so, so angry.
All compliments of an incompetent
Biden administration.
-Honestly, I hope this dude is on drugs.
If that’s how his brain works stone cold sober,
he should see one of Rudy’s doctors.
And it gets worse.
There were reportedly even more drugs
floating around the Trump White House.
-So here’s the headline.
It’s kind of, um -- Can’t mistake it.
"Trump’s white House was 'awash in speed' and Xanax."
The Pentagon included a document
that showed basically an order form for medications
that were ordered by the White House medical unit,
that it was doling out,
and it was stuff like fentanyl and ketamine,
also morphine and Ambien,
and a lot of an upper called Provigil.
-I’m starting to think Trump’s always raging
against the cartels
because he considers them the competition.
"We have to stop fentanyl from crossing our borders
because it’s bringing down the price
of our White House fentanyl."
This is just me, but I’d much rather the White House be super
into ice cream than, you know, opioids.
The right spent four years pretending Biden was senile,
only to discover that he’s not, and now they’re panicking.
And all the while, it was the Trump White House
that was reportedly awash in all kinds of drugs.
For all we know, they were sprinkling
Adderall in their coffee and calling it...
-Jacked-up Joe.
-This has been A Closer Look.
♪♪
Or don’t.